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Fun With 4th Downs

There's been a lot of good work on the subject of 4th down decision making; most notably, there's this paper by David Romer in which he concludes that going for it is beneficial a lot more often than coaches think it is.  I agree wholeheartedly, and I've been outspoken about being aggressive inside your opponent's 40 yard line.  I've said repeatedly that it's never a good idea to punt inside the 40, but that is admittedly too rigid a stance, and as Saturday's game illustrated, those 4th down situations can be incredibly nuanced.

Situation #1: Up 14-7 in the 1st quarter, it's 4th-and-11 for NC State at the Maryland 38.  NC State initially elects to punt and manages to pin Maryland inside its own 5.  But the Terps rough the punter and the coaches decide to take the penalty, which set up 4th-and-6 at the 33, and put the offense back on the field.  Wilson's pass is intercepted and returned for a touchdown--doomsday scenario.

Considerations: State's defense is terrible, obviously, so you'd like to be aggressive as much as reasonably possible when State's offense is in decent position to keep the ball in its hands and put points on the board.  Maryland's offense is terrible, too, and even before Chris Turner went down, they were moving the ball at an unimpressive 4.6 yards/play clip.  We're out of field goal range at the 33, as a 48-yard FG that barely cleared the crossbar later proved.  So that's completely off the table.

The disastrous outcome of the 4th down play isn't a factor either.  Just like you can't kick yourself for folding jack-ten to a big raise even though you would've ended up with the nut straight, the pick-six is irrelevant hindsight.  The key is making the right decision with the data available to you at the time.  The fact that we knew we had Maryland pinned is a factor in the process, though.

So, good decision?  Let's look at some numbers.  On average, teams that start a drive between the 31-40 yard line score twice as often as they do when they start inside their own 10.  Based on this fine work from Bill Connelly, we also know that teams convert 4th-and-6s 36% of the time on average.  With State's good offense working against Maryland's poor defense, the odds are probably a bit higher than that.

Star-divide

The cost of not converting here and giving Maryland the ball at the 33 instead of the 3 (or wherever it was downed) is about one point, according to Connelly's study.  If we do convert, we can reasonably expect to come away with at least three points.  Two-to-one odds against converting (probably closer to 3:2), two-to-one odds against Maryland scoring points if they get the ball at the 33.  Five-to-one against scoring if Maryland gets the ball inside the 10, and that's the wrinkle that makes this tough.  I've gone back and forth so much that I don't think there's a clear cut answer, but I lean towards thinking that going for it was the right move. 

Situation #2: Up 38-31 with a little over a minute left, NC State has the ball at Maryland's 31 yard line; it's 4th-and-12. Maryland is out of time outs, so a conversion makes no defensive stand necessary.  NC State decides to go and Russell Wilson fires a pass into the end zone; Owen Spencer gets his hands on it but can't hang on.  Turnover on downs.

Considerations: Obviously the coaches weren't worried about handing the ball over on the 31, and Czajkowski proved earlier he could hit a field goal from this spot, so why not give that a shot?  The doomsday scenario would be a blocked kick, which I wouldn't put past us.  And Czajkowski might not get all of the kick this time and come up short.  The odds of the offense converting that 4th-and-long were probably in the neighborhood of 4.5-to-1 against.  I tend to think the odds of a made field goal were better.

At that late stage of the game, especially with the Terps out of time outs, I think either you try the field goal or you go ahead and take your chances with a punt.  Yes, I'm suggesting a Russell Wilson quick kick might've been a good idea.  Even if the ball sails into the end zone.  Going back to the averages, the odds that a drive starting at the 20 results in a TD are 4-to-1 against.  With just a minute to work with and zero time outs, they're probably much longer than that.

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Was my text the other day...

… the provoking factor in your decision to write this entry? Good stuff… although I wholeheartedly agreed with the decision to air it out on that second 4th down play… I called for it as soon as we didn’t make it on 3rd… “Fuck it – just wing it downfield!”

Then again, since I’m not paid based on the outcome of such proclamations/decisions, and since TOB had certainly consumed fewer beverages than I had at that point in the day, he could’ve chosen differently.

by wolfonthehill on Nov 9, 2009 4:18 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

yes it was

I think my knee-jerk response to your text was that it was definitely the right call. Then I started thinking about it. I’ll try for more brevity next time.

by Akula Wolf on Nov 9, 2009 4:27 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Agreed

I think that’s a pretty spot-on analysis . It basically matches up with my gut-reaction to both play calls. I go for it on 4th-and-6 from inside the 40 about 100% of the time. The only thing making that call interesting was, as you said, the fact that we had them at the 5-yard line.

But its not O’Brien’s fault that Wilson was temporarily taken over by the spirit of Harrison Beck in thinking that he could throw it through the MD defender with his arm strength.

by AustinJohnson on Nov 9, 2009 6:24 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

That was the tough part, Austin

We had them at, like, the 3. Given that fact, I personally would’ve pinned them deep that time & hoped to get it back around our 40 3-4 minutes later.

Tough call…

by wolfonthehill on Nov 10, 2009 9:16 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

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